July 27, 1917] 



SCIENCE 



77 



the organism. In this undertaking he has 

 always kept in mind the idea that the or- 

 ganism exists in a. state of djTiamic equi- 

 librium, just as it was long ago conceived 

 by Cuvier, and more vaguely by Hume, and 

 by Lucretius. 



Now this idea of regulation, so familiar 

 in the investigations of the temperature of 

 the body, and in many other general prob- 

 lems of metabolism, is the very concept to 

 which all the other independent investiga- 

 tions of organization as a physiological 

 problem also lead. Thus Roux has long 

 since declared, and recently reasserted the 

 belief, that the capacity of autonomous reg- 

 ulation of all nine of his elementary char- 

 acteristics is quite the most important of 

 all the peculiarities of life. For example, 

 he thinks that this is what makes possible 

 the direct adaptation to the environment, 

 or, in other words, the acquiring of charac- 

 teristics. In like manner the action of hor- 

 mones, the integrating function of the ner- 

 vous system, and the phenomena of emo- 

 tional excitement investigated by Cannon 

 are all regulatory. 



It is now possible to see that Herbert 

 Spencer's conception of life as "the con- 

 tinuous adjustment of internal relations to 

 external relations," though doubtless far 

 from satisfactory as a characterization of 

 life itself, is really a true statement of the 

 phenomena of organization. Vague though 

 it may be, it is confirmed by the results of 

 experimental morphology, of physiology 

 and of the science of metabolism, and I sus- 

 pect that pathology affords some of the 

 most striking justifications for such a view. 

 Indeed pathology has its prerogatives, and 

 of these not the least is to follow up the 

 disturbances which, step by step, result 

 from a single lesion or deranged activity 

 until they close a vicious circle, to note the 

 compensatory changes, regenerations and 

 repairs that oppose this process, and thus 

 to perceive the organism as a whole acting 



so as to preserve that state of dynamic 

 equilibrium which is essential to life itself. 

 But Spencer's formula is at best imper- 

 fect and needs to be modified in order to 

 conform more exactly to Aristotle's 

 thought. Perhaps we may say that life is 

 to be conceived as the continuous adjust- 

 ment of internal relations to the state of the 

 organism as a whole in accordance with 

 changes of internal and external relations. 

 Yet I can not believe that such formulas 

 are of much account. What we need to 

 know and always to remember is that or- 

 ganization qualifies the body mechanisms. 

 They are mechanisms a7id also they are or- 

 ganized. It is in no sense a form of vital- 

 ism that is implied in this statement, nor 

 can I think it, as Haldane believes, anti- 

 mechanism. Wliile I am in hearty agree- 

 ment with many of Haldane 's positions, I 

 can not but repudiate this view. Yet a doc- 

 trine essential to all genuine biological 

 progress does arise from this statement, 

 and we are all indebted to Haldane for 

 making it clear and insisting upon it. This 

 doctrine teaches a very necessary truth 

 concerning our present problem of acidosis, 

 viz., that there is no one process or phenom- 

 enon which is the fundamental or essential 

 one, but that each is integral, at once as 

 cause and as effect in a cycle of pathological 

 changes whose onset may be at any one of 

 many points and which as a whole, as a 

 cycle, constitutes the deranged acid-base 

 metabolism. But this, moreover, is not the 

 whole of the matter, for, just as the parts 

 of this cj'cle engage in the whole of the 

 process of acid-base metabolism, so do they 

 also engage, as parts, in other processes, 

 some of them in the respiration, some in the 

 process of excretion, and so on indefinitely. 

 Thus the condition known as acidosis can 

 onlj' be trul}^ conceived in terms of the or- 

 ganization of the body as a whole. Such is 

 the abstract nature of the subject ; with this 

 the known facts correspond. 



